Page 102 of The Same Backward as Forward

“How much longer?” Jackson grunts.

“Until you have your place back?”

He shakes his head. “Boat’s fine by me. How much longer until you leave?”

He might as well have said:Reality is out there. Get ready for it.“If I didn’t know better,” I tell Jackson, “I’d say you were looking to get rid of me.”

“This isn’t about you.”

I know:This is about Hannah.

“How long,” Jackson says, “untilbothof you leave?”

Both of us.He’s assuming that when I am strong enough to leave this place, she will, too.

“There is nothing for that girl here,” Jackson says, his voice low. “She needs to go.”

“I know.” I’ve always known that Hannah the Same Backward as Forward is made for bigger things.

“Then how long,” Jackson repeats, his eyes settling heavily on mine, “until you leave?”

You, plural. As in, both of us. Together.“I don’t know.”

“You haven’t asked her,” Jackson concludes.

I don’t know how to tell him that I’ve been taking little eternities as they come. “I would die before I would leave her behind.”

“Thenask her. Get out of this hellhole, both of you.” Jackson reaches for the shovel, and I reach for his hand.

“You planning to use that shovel?”

“Only if you make me,” Jackson grunts. “And in that case, I’ll be making use of the shotgun first.”

That’s his way of saying that if I hurt Hannah, he will kill me. Fair enough. Hannah might very well be the only person in this world that Jackson actually loves.

“She’s a good girl,” he says fiercely. “She is the damnedest Rooney.” This is my first time hearing Hannah’s last name. “And she is yours now, son. You remember that, no matter what comes.”

Hannah Rooney.Jackson has it wrong—or maybe backward. Hannahisn’tmine.

I am hers.

Chapter 31

Hannah the Same Backward as Forward cheats at checkers. Every time. To be fair, I always cheat first.

“Where did that piece come from?” Hannah narrows her eyes at a black checker that has mysteriously found its way back onto the board.

“In the proximate sense?” I reply with a teasing smile. “Or was that an existential question?” I lift my gaze from the offending piece to her eyes.

Eyes that are no longer narrowed. Eyes that aresparkling, which is the only warning I get that—

“King me.” Hannah slides a red checker forward.

“Misdirection,” I acknowledge. “Get me looking at my checker, and then sneak your own onto the board.”

Hannah shrugs, and there’s something about the rise and fall of her shoulders that makes me wish that we were at the lighthouse instead of in the shack.

“I’ve always excelled,” Hannah says, “at not being seen.”